Author Archives: Citizen

Two weeks ago we sent questions to each of the three candidates running for the two open El Cerrito City Council seats. As of today, only one has responded. The deadline is today so perhaps others will respond. For me, the response or non-response is an indicator of how they will respond to constituent concerns. We veryContinue reading “Vanessa Warheit answers our questions”

Last week I wrote a post updating you all on the current status of the budget. I brought up some points that were reiterated in the 8/16/22 Council Meeting. The question I have is this 22/23 budget sustainable and are the forecasts accurate? The first issue is the Transfer Tax.  I brought that up inContinue reading “Is the 22/23 Budget Stable?”

Gosh has it been 10 months since the last post? Holy Moley does time fly? The author of this blog moved out of state and tried hard to move on with their life. But in the past few weeks, they got a few emails begging them to come out of retirement. Or at least focusContinue reading “We’re Back and El Cerrito’s Budget Process is still a hot mess!”

This is the final part of a three-part series updating residents on activities related to the El Cerrito fiscal crisis. This is the final part of a three-part series updating residents on activities related to the El Cerrito fiscal crisis. In other big news, the Finance Director has resigned and has left the building. WhileContinue reading “Will the Community Fight For Fiscal Responsibility?-El Cerrito Budget Update Part 3”

This is part two of three of the Fall update on what has been happening with the city budget. Today we cover the Ad-Hoc Committee report which includes the report sent to the State Auditor (click the link below) City Council Financial Ad-Hoc Committee Update– Presented by Council Person Rudnick and Motoyama at the Meeting onContinue reading “Will the Community Fight For Fiscal Responsibility-El Cerrito Budget Update Part 2”

It has been a long time since I posted. This writer is going to be leaving El Cerrito and it has been hard to motivate myself to continue with the blog. This blog has filled a void by informing residents about the Fiscal Crisis and I feel sad that it may not continue. There isContinue reading “Will the Community Fight For Fiscal Responsibility?-El Cerrito Budget Update Part 1”

There was a council meeting last night. The finance reports were buried until the end as per usual. The good news is we ended the year with 1.3 million on the books. Some will say we had a surplus of over 2 million but over one million of that had to be written off dueContinue reading “City Council Congratulates themselves for doing nothing”

A few months ago I saw this in the budget document (page 71) This is in the Human Resources Section of the Budget. You will note the $500,000 for a large legal settlement. If you remember in 2019 Sarah Perez sued the ECPD for sexual harassment and retaliation. She alleged she was sexually harassed byContinue reading “El Cerrito Spends Over Half a Million to Settle Sexual Harassment Case”

So bad news is the budget passed without structural cuts to address our severe financial problems. It appears most of the City Council and the City Manager are content to use the federal bailout money to address some of the reserve issues. This can be fine for the two years we get the money butContinue reading “Budget passes 3-2”

I will be honest a bunch of us dedicated budget/council watchers viewed some or all of the meeting. Afterwards, we had a few debates as to what happened. This is how convoluted this process is. Even people well versed in the dysfunction of the El Cerrito government can’t always keep up with the what isContinue reading “City Council Meeting June 15th”

A lot went on at the last meeting Council Meeting. We expect that there will be extensive public comment at the next meeting because people are upset about the cuts to the library hours. We would encourage the following talking points also. 1. Council members should reject the budget because it does not meet theContinue reading “Preparing for the June 15th City Council Meeting”

One of our local residents put together some graphs on El Cerrito finances for the years 2016-2020. I think this is a great way for us to see some of these issues visually. I know it was super helpful for me. At the bottom are links to the data sources used to create the graphs.Continue reading “Pictures Speak Louder than Words”

This meeting was extraordinarily long and very challenging to watch. The low points (there were no high points I saw). The library hours were cut by a 3-2 vote. Councilperson Motoyama brought up the motion after the City Manager hinted strongly for the second meeting in a row that she wanted them cut. Councilpersons Abelson,Continue reading “The City Manager continues to run the show”